Chapter IV (1)

Spain is one of those countries where we find to-day in the greatest numbers those nomads who are scattered over all Europe, and are known by the names of _Bohemians_, _Gitanos_, _Gypsies_, _Zigeuner_, etc. Most of them live, or rather lead a wandering existence, in the provinces of the south and east, in Andalusia, Estremadura, and the kingdom of Murcia; there are many in Catalonia. These latter often cross the frontier into France. They are to be seen at all the fairs in the Midi. Ordinarily the men carry on the trades of horse-dealer, veterinary, and clipper of mules; they combine therewith the industry of mending kettles and copper implements, to say nothing of smuggling and other illicit traffic. The women tell fortunes, beg, and sell all sorts of drugs, innocent or not.

The physical characteristics of the gypsy are easier to distinguish than to describe, and when you have seen a single one, you can readily pick out a person of that race from a thousand others. Features and expression--these above all else separate them from the natives of the countries where they are found. Their complexion is very dark, always darker than that of the peoples among whom they live. Hence the name _Cale_--black--by which they often refer to themselves. Their eyes, which are perceptibly oblique, well-shaped, and very black, are shaded by long, thick lashes. One can compare their look to nothing save that of a wild beast. Audacity and timidity are depicted therein at once, and in that respect their eyes express accurately enough the character of the race--crafty, insolent, but _naturally afraid of blows_, like Panurge. As a general rule, the men are well-knit, slender, and active; I believe that I have never seen a single one overburdened with flesh. In Germany, the gypsy women are often very pretty; beauty is very rare among the _gitanas_ of Spain. When they are very young, they may pass for rather attractive ugly women; but when they have once become mothers, they are repulsive. The uncleanliness of both sexes is beyond belief, and one who has never seen the hair of a gypsy matron would find it hard to form an idea of it, even by imagining it as like the coarsest, greasiest, dustiest horsehair. In some large cities of Andalusia, some of the girls who are a little more attractive than the rest take more care of their persons. They go about dancing for money--dances very like those which are forbidden at our (Parisian) public balls during the Carnival. M. Borrow, an English missionary, the author of two very interesting works on the gypsies of Spain, whom he had undertaken to convert at the expense of the Bible Society, asserts that there is no known instance of a _gitana_ having a weakness for a man not of her race. It seems to me that there is much exaggeration in the eulogium which he bestows on their chastity. In the first place, the great majority of them are in the plight of Ovid’s ugly woman: _Casta quam nemo rogavit_. As for the pretty ones, they are, like all Spanish women, exacting in the choice of their lovers. A man must please them and deserve them. M. Borrow cites as a proof of their virtue an instance which does honour to his own virtue, and above all to his innocence. An immoral man of his acquaintance, he says, offered several ounces of gold to a pretty _gitana_, to no purpose. An Andalusian to whom I told this anecdote declared that that same immoral man would have had better luck if he had shown only two or three piastres, and that to offer ounces of gold to a gypsy was as poor a way to persuade her as to promise a million or two to a servant girl at an inn. However that may be, it is certain that the _gitanas_ display a most extraordinary devotion to their husbands. There is no peril or privation which they will not defy, in order to assist them in their need. One of the names by which the gypsies call themselves--_romi_ or _spouses_--seems to me to bear witness to the respect of the race for the marriage state. In general, we may say that their principal virtue is patriotism, if we may call by that name the fidelity which they observe in their relations with persons of the same origin as themselves, the zeal with which they help one another, and the inviolable secrecy which they maintain in respect to compromising affairs. Indeed, we may remark something similar in all associations that are shrouded in mystery and are outside of the law.

A few months ago, I visited a tribe of gypsies settled in the Vosges. In the cabin of an old woman, the patriarch of the tribe, there was a gypsy unknown to her family, suffering from a fatal disease. That man had left a hospital, where he was well cared for, to die among his compatriots. For thirteen weeks he had been in bed in the cabin of his hosts, and much better treated than the sons and sons-in-law who lived in the same house. He had a comfortable bed of straw and moss, with reasonably white sheets, whereas the rest of the family, to the number of eleven, slept on boards three feet long. So much for their hospitality. The same woman who was so humane to her guest said in his presence: “_Singo, singo, homte hi mulo.”_ “Before long, before long, he must die.” After all, the life of those people is so wretched that the certainty of death has no terrors for them.

A remarkable feature of the gypsy character is their indifference in the matter of religion. Not that they are atheists or skeptics. They have never made profession of atheism. Far from that, they adopt the religion of the country in which they live; but they change when they change countries. The superstitions which among ignorant peoples replace religious sentiments are equally foreign to them. Indeed, how could superstition exist among people who, in most cases, live on the credulity of others! I have observed, however, among Spanish gypsies, a strange horror at the thought of touching a dead body. There are few of them whom money could hire to carry a corpse to the cemetery.

I have said that most gypsy women dabble in fortune-telling. They are very skillful at it. But another thing that is a source of very great profit to them is the sale of charms and love-philtres. Not only do they keep frogs’ feet to fix fickle hearts, or powdered lodestone to force the unfeeling to love; but at need they make potent conjurations which compel the devil to lend them his aid. Last year a Spanish woman told me the following story: She was passing one day along Rue d’Alcala, sad and distraught, when a gypsy sitting on the sidewalk called after her: “Your lover has been false to you, fair lady.”--It was the truth.--“Do you want me to bring him back?”--You will imagine how joyfully the offer was accepted, and what unbounded confidence was naturally inspired by a person who could thus divine at a glance the inmost secrets of the heart. As it would have been impossible to proceed to magic rites in the most frequented street in Madrid, they made an appointment for the morrow.--“Nothing easier than to bring the unfaithful one back to your feet,” said the _gitana_. “Have you a handkerchief, a scarf, or a mantilla that he has given you?”--The lady gave her a silk handkerchief.--“Now sew a piastre into a corner of it, with crimson silk; half a piastre into another; a _piecette_ here; a two real piece here. Then you must sew a gold piece in the centre; a doubloon would be best.”--The doubloon and the rest were duly sewn into the handkerchief.--“Now, give it to me; I will take it to the Campo-Santo when the clock strikes twelve. Come with me, if you want to see some fine deviltry. I promise you that you will see the man you love to-morrow.”--The gypsy started alone for the Campo-Santo, for the lady was too much afraid of the devils to accompany her. I leave you to guess whether the poor love-lorn creature saw her handkerchief or her faithless lover again.

Despite their poverty and the sort of aversion which they inspire, the gypsies enjoy a certain consideration none the less among unenlightened peoples, and they are very proud of it. They feel a haughty contempt for intelligence, and cordially despise the people who give them hospitality. “The Gentiles are such fools,” said a gypsy of the Vosges to me one day, “that there’s no merit in tricking them. The other day a peasant woman called to me on the street, and I went into her house. Her stove was smoking, and she asked me for a spell, to make it burn. I told her to give me first of all a big piece of pork. Then I mumbled a few words in _rommani_. ‘You are a fool,’ I said, ‘you were born a fool, a fool you will die.’--When I was at the door, I said to her in good German: ‘The infallible way to keep your stove from smoking is not to make any fire in it.’--And I ran off at full speed.”

The history of the gypsies is still a problem. To be sure, we know that the first bands of them, very small in numbers, showed themselves in the east of Europe early in the fifteenth century; but no one can say whence they came to Europe, or why; and, which is more extraordinary, we have no idea how they multiplied so prodigiously, in a short time, in several countries at a great distance from one another. The gypsies themselves have preserved no tradition concerning their origin, and, although most of them speak of Egypt as their original fatherland, it is because they have adopted a fable that was spread abroad concerning them many, many years ago.

Most Orientalists who have studied the gypsy language believe that they came originally from India. In fact, it seems that a great number of the roots of the _rommani_ tongue and many of its grammatical forms are found in phrases derived from the Sanskrit. We can understand that, in their long wanderings, the gypsies may have adopted many foreign words. In all the dialects of the _rommani_, we find many Greek words. For example: _cocal_, bone, from κόκκαλον; _petalli_, horseshoe, from πέταλον; _cafi_, nail, from καρφί, etc. To-day, the gypsies have almost as many different dialects as there are bands of their race living apart from one another. Everywhere they speak the language of the country in which they live more readily than their own, which they seldom use except as a means of speaking freely before strangers. If we compare the dialect of the gypsies of Germany with that of the Spaniards, who have had no communication with the former for centuries, we discover a very great number of words common to the two; but the original tongue has been noticeably modified everywhere, although in different degrees, by the contact with the more cultivated tongues, which these nomads have been constrained to employ. German on the one side, Spanish on the other, have so modified the substance of the _rommani_ that it would be impossible for a gypsy of the Black Forest to converse with one of his Andalusian brethren, although they need only exchange a few sentences to realise that each of them is speaking a dialect derived from the same parent tongue. A few words in very frequent use are common, I believe, to all dialects; for instance, in all the vocabularies which I have had an opportunity to see, _pani_ means water, _manro_, bread, _mas_, meat, and _lon_, salt.

The names of the numbers are almost the same everywhere. The German dialect seems to me much purer than the Spanish; for it has retained a number of the primitive grammatical forms, while the _gitanos_ have adopted those of the Castilian tongue. A few words, however, are exceptions to this rule and attest the former community of the dialects. The preterit tenses in the German dialect are formed by adding _ium_ to the imperative, which is always the root of the verb. The verbs in the Spanish _rommani_ are all conjugated like Castilian verbs of the first conjugation. From the infinitive _jamar_, to eat, they regularly make _jamé_, I have eaten; from _lillar_, to take, _lillé_, I have taken. But some old gypsies say, on the other hand, _jayon_, _lillon_. I know no other verbs which have retained this ancient form.

While I am thus parading my slight acquaintance with the _rommani_ tongue, I must note a few words of French argot, which our thieves have borrowed from the gypsies. The _Mystères de Paris_ has taught good society that _chourin_ means knife. The word is pure _rommani_; _tchouri_ is one of the words common to all the dialects. M. Vidocq calls a horse _grès_--that is another _rommani_ word--_gras_, _gre_, _graste_, _gris_. Add the word _romanichel_, which in Parisian slang means gypsies. It is a corruption of _rommane tchave_, gypsy youths. But an etymology of which I am proud is that of _frimousse_, expression, face--a word which all schoolboys use, or did use in my day. Observe first that Oudin, in his curious dictionary, wrote in 1640 _firlimouse_. Now, _firla_, _fila_, in _rommani_ means face; _mui_ has the same meaning, it exactly corresponds to the Latin _os_. The combination _firlamui_ was instantly understood by a gypsy purist, and I believe it to be in conformity with the genius of his language.

This is quite enough to give the readers of _Carmen_ a favourable idea of my studies in _rommani_. I will close with this proverb, which is quite apropos: _En retudi panda nasti abela macha_--“a fly cannot enter a closed mouth.”

1845.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Andalusians aspirate the _s_, and in pronunciation confound it with _c_ soft and _z_, which the Spaniards pronounce like the English _th_. It is possible to recognise an Andalusian by the one word _señor_.

[2] That is, the _privileged provinces_, which enjoy special _fueros_, namely, Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and a part of Navarre. Basque is the language spoken in those provinces.

[3] A café provided with an ice-house, or rather with a store of snow. There is hardly a village in Spain which has not its _neveria_.

[4] In Spain every traveller who does not carry about with him specimens of calico or silk is taken for an Englishman, _Inglesito_. It is the same in the East; at Chalcis I had the honour of being announced as a Μιλὸρδος Φραντσέοος.

[5] Fortune.

[6] In 1830 the nobility alone enjoyed that privilege. To-day (1847) under the constitutional _régime_, the plebeians have obtained the privilege of the _garrote_.

[7] Ironshod staves carried by the Basques.

[8] The magistrate at the head of the police and municipal administration.

[9] The ordinary costume of the peasant women of Navarre and the Basque provinces.

[10] Yes, sir.

[11] Enclosure, garden.

[12] Bravoes, bullies.

[13] All the Spanish cavalry are armed with lances.

[14] Alcala de los Panaderos, a hamlet two leagues from Seville, where they make delicious small loaves. It is claimed that their excellence is due to the water of Alcala, and great quantities of them are taken to Seville daily.

[15] Good-day, comrade.

[16] Most of the houses in Seville have an interior courtyard surrounded by porticos. The inhabitants live there in summer. The courtyard is covered with canvas, which is kept wet during the day and removed at night. The gate into the street is almost always open, and the passage leading into the courtyard is closed by an iron gate of elaborate workmanship.

[17] _Mañana sera otro dia._--A Spanish proverb.

[18] A gypsy proverb.

[19] Sugared yolks of eggs.

[20] A kind of nougat.

[21] King Don Pedro, whom we call the _Cruel_, but whom Isabella the Catholic always called the _Justiciary_, loved to walk the streets of Seville at night in search of adventures, like the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid. On a certain night he had a quarrel in an out-of-the-way street with a man who was giving a serenade. They fought and the king slew the love-lorn knight. Hearing the clash of swords, an old woman put her head out of a window and lighted up the scene with a small lamp (_candilejo_) which she held in her hand. You must know that King Don Pedro, who was very active and powerful, had one physical peculiarity: his knees cracked loudly when he walked. The old woman had no difficulty in recognising him by means of that cracking. The next day the Twenty-four who was on duty came to the king to make his report. “Sire, there was a duel last night on such a street. One of the combatants was killed.” “Have you discovered the murderer?” “Yes, sire.” “Why is he not punished before now?” “I await your orders, sire.” “Carry out the law.” Now the king had recently issued a decree providing that every duellist should be beheaded, and that his head should be exposed on the battle-field. The Twenty-four extricated himself from the dilemma like a man of wit. He caused the head of a statue of the king to be sawed off, and exposed it in a recess in the middle of the street where the murder had taken place. The king and all the good people of Seville thought it an excellent joke. The street took its name from the lamp of the old woman, who was the sole witness of the adventure. Such is the popular tradition. Zuñiga tells the story a little differently. (See _Anales de Sevilla_, vol. ii., p. 136.) However, there is still a Rue de Candilejo in Seville, and in that street a stone bust said to be a portrait of Don Pedro. Unfortunately the bust is a modern affair. The old one was sadly defaced in the seventeenth century, and the municipal government caused it to be replaced by the one we see to-day.

[22] _Rom_, husband; _romi_, wife.

[23] _Calo_; feminine _calli_; plural _cales_. Literally _black_--the name by which the gypsies call themselves in their own tongue.

[24] The Spanish dragoons wear a yellow uniform.

[25] A gypsy proverb.

[26] Saint--the Blessed Virgin.

[27] The gallows, supposed to be the widow of the last man hanged.

[28] The red (land).

[29] _Flamenço de Roma_--a slang term to designate a gypsy. _Roma_ does not mean here the Eternal City, but the race of _Romi_, or married folk, a name which the gypsies assume. The first that were seen in Spain probably came from the Low Countries, whence the designation _Flemings_.

[30] A bulbous root of which a very pleasant drink is made.

[31] The ordinary rations of the Spanish soldier.

[32] That is, with address, and without violence.

[33] A sort of unattached body of troops.

[34] The idiots, to take me for a swell!

[35] A name which the common people in Spain give to the English, on account of the colour of their uniform.

[36] That is to say, to the galleys, or to all the devils.

[37] My lover, or rather, my fancy.

[38] _La divisa_, a bow of ribbon, the colour of which indicates the place from which the bull comes. This bow is fastened in the bull’s hide by a hook, and it is the very climax of gallantry to tear it from the living animal and present it to a woman.

[39] Maria Padilla has been accused of having bewitched King Don Pedro. A popular tradition says that she presented to Queen Blanche de Bourbon a golden girdle, which seemed to the fascinated eyes of the king a living serpent. Hence the repugnance which he always displayed for the unfortunate princess.

The Taking of the Redoubt

A military friend of mine, who died of a fever in Greece a few years ago, told me one day about the first action in which he took part. His story made such an impression on me that I wrote it down from memory as soon as I had time. Here it is:

I joined the regiment on the fourth of September, in the evening. I found the colonel in camp. He received me rather roughly; but when he had read General B----’s recommendation, his manner changed and he said a few courteous words to me.

I was presented by him to my captain, who had just returned from a reconnaissance. This captain, with whom I hardly had time to become acquainted, was a tall, dark man, with a harsh, repellent face. He had been a private and had won his epaulets and his cross on the battle-field. His voice, which was hoarse and weak, contrasted strangely with his almost gigantic stature. I was told that he owed that peculiar voice to a bullet which had passed through his lungs at the battle of Jena.

When he learned that I was fresh from the school at Fontainebleau, he made a wry face and said:

“My lieutenant died yesterday.”

I understood that he meant to imply: “You ought to take his place, and you are not capable of it.”

A sharp retort came to my lips, but I restrained myself.

The moon rose behind the redoubt of Cheverino, about two gunshots from our bivouac. It was large and red, as it usually is when it rises. But on that evening it seemed to me of extraordinary size. For an instant the redoubt stood sharply out in black against the brilliant disk of the moon. It resembled the crater of a volcano at the instant of an eruption.

An old soldier beside whom I happened to be, remarked upon the colour of the moon.

“It is very red,” said he; “that’s a sign that it will cost us dear to take that famous redoubt!”

I have always been superstitious, and that prophecy, at that particular moment especially, affected me. I lay down, but I could not sleep. I rose and walked about for some time, watching the tremendously long line of camp-fires that covered the heights above the village of Cheverino.

When I thought that the fresh, sharp night air had cooled my blood sufficiently, I returned to the fire; I wrapped myself carefully in my cloak and closed my eyes, hoping not to open them before dawn. But sleep refused to come. Insensibly my thoughts took a gloomy turn. I said to myself that I had not a friend among the hundred thousand men who covered that plain. If I were wounded, I should be taken to a hospital and treated roughly by ignorant surgeons. All that I had heard of surgical operations came to my mind. My heart beat violently, and I instinctively arranged my handkerchief, and the wallet that I had in my breast pocket, as a sort of cuirass. I was worn out with fatigue, I nodded every moment, and every moment some sinister thought returned with renewed force and roused me with a start.

But weariness carried the day, and when they beat the reveille, I was sound asleep. We were drawn up in battle array, the roll was called, then we stacked arms, and everything indicated that we were to have a quiet day.

About three o’clock an aide-de-camp appeared, bringing an order. We were ordered under arms again; our skirmishers spread out over the plain; we followed them slowly, and after about twenty minutes, we saw all the advanced posts of the Russians fall back and return inside the redoubt.

A battery of artillery came into position at our right, another at our left, but both well in advance of us. They began a very hot fire at the enemy, who replied vigorously, and the redoubt of Cheverino soon disappeared beneath dense clouds of smoke.

Our regiment was almost protected from the Russian fire by a rise in the ground. Their balls, which, indeed, were rarely aimed at us, for they preferred to fire at our gunners, passed over our heads, or, at the worst, spattered us with dirt and small stones.

As soon as we received the order to advance, my captain looked at me with a close scrutiny which compelled me to run my hand over my budding moustache twice or thrice, as unconcernedly as I could. Indeed, I was not frightened, and the only fear I had was that he should believe that I was frightened. Those harmless cannon-balls helped to maintain me in my heroically calm frame of mind. My self-esteem told me that I was really in danger, as I was at last under the fire of a battery. I was overjoyed to be so entirely at my ease, and I thought of the pleasure I should take in telling of the capture of the redoubt of Cheverino in Madame de B----’s salon on Rue de Provence.

The colonel passed our company; he spoke to me:

“Well, you are going to see some sharp work for your début.”

I smiled with an altogether martial air as I brushed my coat sleeve, on which a shot that struck the ground thirty yards away had spattered a little dust.

It seems that the Russians observed the ill success of their cannon-balls; for they replaced them with shells, which could more easily be made to reach us in the hollow where we were posted. A large piece of one took off my shako and killed a man near me.

“I congratulate you,” said my captain, as I picked up my shako; “you’re safe now for to-day.”

I was acquainted with the military superstition which believes that the axiom, _Non bis in idem_, has the same application on a field of battle as in a court of justice. I proudly replaced my shako on my head.

“That is making a fellow salute rather unceremoniously,” I said as gaily as I could. That wretched joke was considered first-rate, in view of the circumstances.

“I congratulate you,” continued the captain; “you will get nothing worse, and you will command a company this evening; for I feel that the oven is being heated for me. Every time that I have been wounded the officer nearest me has been hit by a spent ball; and,” he added in a low tone and almost as if he were ashamed, “their names always began with a P.”

I feigned incredulity; many men would have done the same; many men too would have been, as I was, profoundly impressed by those prophetic words. Conscript as I was, I realised that I could not confide my sensations to any one, and that I must always appear cool and fearless.

After about half an hour the Russian fire sensibly diminished; thereupon we left our sheltered position to march upon the redoubt.

Our regiment consisted of three battalions. The second was ordered to turn the redoubt on the side of the entrance; the other two were to make the assault. I was in the third battalion.

As we came out from behind the species of ridge which had protected us, we were received by several volleys of musketry, which did little damage in our ranks. The whistling of the bullets surprised me; I kept turning my head, and thus induced divers jests on the part of my comrades, who were more familiar with that sound.

“Take it all in all,” I said to myself, “a battle isn’t such a terrible thing.”

We advanced at the double-quick, preceded by skirmishers; suddenly the Russians gave three hurrahs, three distinct hurrahs, then remained silent and ceased firing.

“I don’t like this silence,” said my captain; “it bodes us no good.”

I considered that our men were a little too noisy, and I could not forbear making a mental comparison between their tumultuous shouting and the enemy’s impressive silence.

We speedily reached the foot of the redoubt; the palisades had been shattered and the earth torn up by our balls. The soldiers rushed at these newly made ruins with shouts of “_Vive l’Empereur!_” louder than one would have expected to hear from men who had already shouted so much.

I raised my eyes, and I shall never forget the spectacle that I saw. The greater part of the smoke had risen, and hung like a canopy about twenty feet above the redoubt. Through a bluish haze one could see the Russian grenadiers behind their half-destroyed parapet, with arms raised, motionless as statues. It seems to me that I can see now each soldier, with his left eye fastened upon us, the right hidden by the levelled musket. In an embrasure, a few yards away, a man stood beside a cannon, holding a fusee.

I shuddered, and I thought that my last hour had come.

“The dance is going to begin,” cried my captain. “Bonsoir!”

Those were the last words I heard him utter.

The drums rolled inside the redoubt. I saw all the muskets drop. I closed my eyes, and I heard a most appalling crash, followed by shrieks and groans. I opened my eyes, surprised to find myself still among the living. The redoubt was filled with smoke once more. I was surrounded by dead and wounded. My captain lay at my feet; his head had been shattered by a cannon-ball, and I was covered with his brains and his blood. Of all my company only six men and myself were left on our feet.

This carnage was succeeded by a moment of stupefaction. The colonel, placing his hat on the point of his sword, was the first to scale the parapet, shouting: “_Vive l’Empereur!_” He was followed instantly by all the survivors. I have a very dim remembrance of what followed. We entered the redoubt; how, I have no idea. We fought hand to hand, amid smoke so dense that we could not see one another. I believe that I struck, for my sabre was all bloody. At last I heard shouts of “Victory!” and as the smoke grew less dense, I saw blood and corpses completely covering the surface of the redoubt. The guns especially were buried beneath piles of bodies. About two hundred men, in the French uniform, were standing about in groups, with no pretence of order, some loading their muskets, others wiping their bayonets. Eleven hundred Russian prisoners were with them.

The colonel, covered with blood, was lying on a shattered caisson near the ravine. A number of soldiers were bustling about him. I approached.

“Where is the senior captain?” he asked a sergeant.

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders most expressively.

“And the senior lieutenant?”

“Monsieur here, who arrived last night,” said the sergeant, in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone.

The colonel smiled bitterly.

“Well, monsieur,” he said, “you command in chief; order the entrance to the redoubt to be strengthened with these waggons, for the enemy is in force; but General C---- will see that you are supported.”

“Colonel,” I said, “are you severely wounded?”

“Finished, my boy, but the redoubt is taken!”

1829.

Mateo Falcone

As you leave Porto Vecchio and journey north-west, towards the interior of the island, you find that the ground rises rather rapidly; and after a three hours’ jaunt along winding paths, obstructed by huge boulders, and sometimes interrupted by ravines, you find yourself on the edge of a very extensive _maquis_. The _maquis_ is the home of the Corsican shepherd and of all those who are at odds with the law. You must know that the Corsican farmer, to save himself the trouble of fertilising his land, sets fire to a certain amount of woodland. If the fire spreads farther than is necessary, so much the worse; come what come may, he is quite sure of obtaining a good harvest by planting the ground fertilised by the ashes of the trees it formerly bore. When the ripe grain is gathered,--for they leave the straw, which it would require some labour to collect,--the roots which are left unburned in the ground put forth in the following spring very vigorous shoots, which reach a height of seven or eight feet in a few years. It is this species of dense underbrush which is called _maquis_. It consists of trees and bushes of different kinds, mingled together as God pleases. Only with hatchet in hand can man open a path through it; and there are some _maquis_ so dense and thick that even the wild sheep cannot break through.

If you have killed a man, betake yourself to the _maquis_ of Porto Vecchio, and you can live there in safety with a good rifle, powder, and shot. Do not forget a brown cloak provided with a hood, to serve as a covering and as a mattress. The shepherds will give you milk, cheese, and chestnuts, and you will have no reason to fear the law, or the dead man’s kindred, except when you are forced to go down into the town to replenish your stock of ammunition.

Mateo Falcone, when I was in Corsica, in 18--, had his home about half a league from this _maquis_. He was a rather wealthy man for that country; living nobly--that is to say, without working--on the produce of his flocks, which were driven to pasture here and there upon the mountains by shepherds, a sort of nomadic people. When I saw him, two years subsequent to the episode I am about to relate, he seemed to me to be not more than fifty years old at most. Imagine a small, but sturdily built man, with curly hair as black as jet, aquiline nose, thin lips, large bright eyes, and a complexion of the hue of a boot-flap. His skill in marksmanship was considered extraordinary, even in his country, where there are so many good shots. For example, Mateo would never fire at a wild sheep with buckshot; but he would bring one down at a hundred and twenty yards with a bullet in the head or the shoulder, as he pleased. He used his weapons as readily at night as by day, and I was told of this instance of his skill, which will seem incredible perhaps to those who have not travelled in Corsica. A candle was placed at a distance of twenty-four yards, behind a piece of transparent paper as large as a plate. He took aim, then the candle was extinguished, and, a minute later, in absolute darkness, he fired and hit the paper three times out of four.

With such transcendent talent, Mateo Falcone had won a great reputation. He was said to be as true a friend as he was a dangerous enemy; always ready to oblige, and generous to the poor, he lived at peace with all the world in the district of Porto Vecchio. But the story was told of him, that at Corte, where he married his wife, he had disposed very summarily of a rival who was reputed to be as redoubtable in war as in love; at all events, Mateo was given credit for a certain rifle shot which surprised the aforesaid rival as he was shaving in front of a little mirror that hung at his window. When the affair was forgotten, Mateo married. His wife, Giuseppa, gave him at first three daughters (which caused him to fret and fume), and finally a son, whom he named Fortunato; he was the hope of the family, the heir to the name. The daughters were well married; their father could at need rely upon the daggers and carbines of his sons-in-law. The son was only ten years old, but he already gave rich promise for the future.

On a certain day in autumn, Mateo left the house early, with his wife, to inspect one of his flocks at a clearing in the _maquis_. Fortunato would have liked to go with them, but the clearing was too far; moreover, some one must stay behind to watch the house; so the father refused; we shall see whether he had reason to repent.

He had been absent several hours, and little Fortunato was lying placidly in the sun, watching the blue mountains, and thinking that, on the following Sunday, he was going to the town to dine with his uncle the _caporal_,[40] when he was suddenly interrupted in his meditations by the report of a firearm. He rose and turned towards the plain from which the sound came. Other reports followed, at unequal intervals, coming constantly nearer. At last, on a path leading from the plain to Mateo’s house, appeared a man wearing a pointed cap such as the mountaineers wear, with a long beard, clad in rags, and hardly able to drag himself along, using his rifle as a cane. He had received a bullet in the thigh.

That man was a bandit,[41] who, having started under cover of the darkness to go to the town for powder, had fallen into an ambush of Corsican voltigeurs.[42] After a stout defence he had succeeding in beating a retreat, hotly pursued, and firing from one rock after another. But he was only a little in advance of the soldiers, and his wound made it impossible to reach the _maquis_ before he was overtaken.

He went up to Fortunato and said:

“You are Mateo Falcone’s son?”

“Yes.”

“I am Gianetto Sanpiero. I am pursued by the yellow collars.[43] Hide me, for I can’t go any farther.”

“What will my father say if I hide you without his leave?”

“He will say that you did well.”

“Who knows?”

“Hide me quick; they’re coming.”

“Wait till my father comes home.”

“Wait? damnation! They will be here in five minutes. Come, hide me, or I’ll kill you.”

Fortunato replied with the utmost coolness:

“Your gun’s empty, and there ain’t any cartridges left in your _carchera_.”[44]

“I have my stiletto.”

“But can you run as fast I can?”

He gave a leap and placed himself out of danger.

“You are not Mateo Falcone’s son! Will you let me be arrested in front of your house?”

The child seemed to be moved.

“What will you give me if I hide you?” he said, drawing nearer.

The bandit felt in a leather pocket that hung from his belt and took out a five-franc piece, which he had kept in reserve, no doubt, to buy powder. Fortunato smiled at sight of the silver; he seized it and said to Gianetto:

“Don’t be afraid.”

He instantly dug a great hole in a haystack that stood near the house. Gianetto crept into it, and the child covered him so as to let him have a little air to breathe, but so that it was impossible to suspect that the hay concealed a man. He conceived also an ingeniously crafty idea, worthy of a savage. He took a cat and her kittens and placed them on the haystack, to make it appear that it had not been disturbed recently. Then, noticing marks of blood on the path near the house, he carefully covered them with dirt, and, when that was done, lay down again in the sun with the most perfect tranquillity.

A few minutes later, six men in brown uniform with yellow facings commanded by an adjutant halted in front of Mateo’s door. This adjutant was distantly related to the Falcones. (It is well known that in Corsica degrees of kinship are followed out much farther than elsewhere.) His name was Tiodoro Gamba; he was an active officer, greatly feared by the bandits, several of whom he had already run to earth.

“Good-day, my young cousin,” he said to Fortunato, walking to where he lay; “how you’ve grown! Did you see a man pass by just now?”

“Oh! I ain’t as tall as you yet, cousin,” replied the child, with a stupid expression.

“That will come. But tell me, didn’t you see a man pass?”

“Didn’t I see a man pass?”

“Yes, a man with a black velvet pointed cap and a red and yellow embroidered jacket?”

“A man in a pointed cap and a red and yellow embroidered jacket?”

“Yes; answer at once, and don’t repeat my questions.”

“Monsieur le curé passed our door this morning, on his horse Piero. He asked me how papa was and I told him----”

“Ah! you little scamp, you are playing sly! Tell me quick which way Gianetto went; for he’s the man we’re looking for, and I am certain he took this path.”

“Who knows?”

“Who knows? I know that you saw him.”

“Does a fellow see people pass when he’s asleep?”

“You weren’t asleep, good-for-nothing; the shots woke you.”

“Do you think, cousin, that your guns make such a great noise? My father’s carbine makes a lot more.”

“May the devil take you, you infernal rascal! I am perfectly sure you saw Gianetto. Perhaps you have hidden him even. Come, boys; go into the house, and see if our man isn’t there. He was only going on one foot, and he knows too much, the villain, to try to get to the _maquis_ at that gait. Besides, the marks of blood stopped here.”

“What will papa say?” queried Fortunato, with a mocking laugh. “What will he say when he knows that you went into his house when he was away?”

“You good-for-nothing!” said Adjutant Gamba, taking him by the ear, “do you know that it rests with me to make you change your tune? Perhaps, if I give you twenty blows or so with the flat of my sabre, you will conclude to speak.”

But Fortunato continued to laugh sneeringly.

“My father is Mateo Falcone!” he said with emphasis.

“Do you know, you little scamp, that I can take you to Corte or to Bastia? I’ll make you sleep in a dungeon, on straw, with irons on your feet, and I’ll have you guillotined, if you don’t tell me where Gianetto Sanpiero is.”

The child laughed heartily at this absurd threat.

“My father’s Mateo Falcone,” he repeated.

“Adjutant,” said one of the voltigeurs in an undertone, “let us not get into a row with Mateo.”

Gamba was evidently perplexed. He talked in a low tone with his soldiers, who had already searched the whole house. It was not a very long operation, for a Corsican’s cabin consists of a single square room. The furniture consists of a table, benches, chests, and household and hunting implements. Meanwhile little Fortunato patted his cat, and seemed to derive a wicked enjoyment from the embarrassment of the voltigeurs and his cousin.

A soldier approached the haystack. He saw the cat and thrust his bayonet carelessly into the hay, shrugging his shoulders, as if he realised that it was an absurd precaution. Nothing stirred; and the child’s face did not betray the slightest excitement.

The adjutant and his squad were at their wit’s end; they were already glancing meaningly toward the plain, as if proposing to return whence they came, when their leader, convinced that threats would have no effect on Falcone’s son, determined to make one last effort, and to try the power of caresses and gifts.

“You seem to be a very wide-awake youngster, cousin,” said he. “You will go far. But you are playing a low game with me; and if I wasn’t afraid of distressing my cousin Mateo, deuce take me if I wouldn’t carry you off with me!”

“Bah!”

“But, when my cousin returns, I’ll tell him the story, and he’ll give you the lash till the blood comes, to punish you for lying.”

“And then?”

“You will see. But, I say, be a good boy, and I’ll give you something.”

“And I’ll give you a piece of advice, cousin: if you stay here any longer, Gianetto will be in the _maquis_, and then it will take more than one fox like you to catch him.”

The adjutant took a silver watch from his pocket, worth perhaps thirty francs; and observing that little Fortunato’s eyes sparkled as he looked at it, he said, holding it up at the end of its steel chain:

“Rascal! you’d like to have a watch like this hanging round your neck, and you’d stroll through the streets of Porto Vecchio, as proud as a peacock; and people would ask you: ‘What time is it?’ and you’d say: ‘Look at my watch!’”

“When I’m big, my uncle the _caporal_ will give me a watch.”

“Yes; but your uncle’s son has got one now--not such a fine one as this, to be sure. Still, he’s younger than you.”

The child sighed.

“Well! would you like this watch, my little cousin?”

Fortunato, with his eye fixed on the watch, resembled a cat to which a whole chicken is presented. As the beast feels sure that he is being made a fool of, he dares not touch it with his claws, and he turns his eyes away from time to time to avoid the risk of yielding to temptation; but he licks his chops every instant, and seems to say to his master: “What a cruel joke this is!”

But Adjutant Gamba seemed to be in earnest in his offer of the watch. Fortunato did not put out his hand; but he said with a bitter smile:

“Why do you make sport of me?”

“By God! I am not joking. Just tell me where Gianetto is, and this watch is yours.”

Fortunato smiled an incredulous smile; and, fastening his black eyes on the adjutant’s, he strove to read therein how far he should put faith in his words.

“May I lose my epaulets,” cried the adjutant, “if I don’t give you the watch on that condition! My comrades are witnesses; and I can’t go back on my word.”

As he spoke, he held the watch nearer and nearer, so that it almost touched the child’s pale cheek. His face betrayed the battle that was taking place in his mind between covetousness and respect for the duties of hospitality. His bare breast rose and fell violently, and he seemed on the point of suffocation. Meanwhile the watch swung to and fro, turned, and sometimes touched the end of his nose. At last, by slow degrees, his right hand rose toward the watch; the ends of his fingers touched it; and he felt the full weight of it on his hand, but still the adjutant did not let go the end of the chain. The face was sky-blue, the case newly polished--in the sun it shone like fire. The temptation was too great.

Fortunato raised his left hand, too, and pointed with his thumb, over his left shoulder, to the haystack against which he was leaning. The adjutant understood him instantly. He let go the end of the chain; Fortunato realised that he was the sole possessor of the watch. He sprang up with the agility of a stag, and ran some yards away from the haystack, which the voltigeurs began at once to demolish.

They soon saw the hay begin to move; and a man covered with blood came forth, dagger in hand; but when he tried to raise himself, his stiffened wound prevented him from standing erect. He fell. The adjutant threw himself upon him and tore his stiletto from his hand. In a trice he was securely bound, despite his resistance.

Gianetto, lying on the ground and corded like a bundle of sticks, turned his head toward Fortunato, who had drawn near.

“Son of----!” he said, with more scorn than anger.

The child tossed him the piece of silver which he had received from him, feeling that he no longer deserved it; but the outlaw seemed to pay no heed to that movement. He said to the adjutant, as coolly as possible:

“I can’t walk, my dear Gamba; you will have to carry me to the town.”

“You ran faster than a kid just now,” retorted the cruel victor; “but never fear; I am so pleased to have caught you, that I would carry you on my back a whole league without getting tired. However, my boy, we’ll make a litter for you with some branches and your cloak; and we shall find horses at Crespoli’s farm.”

“Good,” said the prisoner; “just put a little straw on your litter, too, so that I can be more comfortable.”

While the voltigeurs busied themselves, some in making a sort of litter with chestnut branches, others in dressing Gianetto’s wound, Mateo Falcone and his wife suddenly appeared at a bend in the path leading to the _maquis_. The woman was stooping painfully beneath the weight of an enormous bag of chestnuts, while her husband sauntered along, carrying nothing save one rifle in his hand and another slung over his shoulder; for it is unworthy of a man to carry any other burden than his weapons.

At sight of the soldiers, Mateo’s first thought was that they had come to arrest him. But why that thought? Had Mateo any difficulties to adjust with the authorities? No. He enjoyed an excellent reputation. He was, as they say, a person of good fame; but he was a Corsican and a mountaineer; and there are few Corsican mountaineers who, by carefully searching their memory, cannot find some trifling peccadillo--such as a rifle shot, a dagger thrust, or other bagatelle. Mateo’s conscience was clearer than most, for he had not aimed his rifle at a man for more than ten years; but he was prudent none the less, and he placed himself in a position to make a stout defence, if need be.

“Wife,” he said to Giuseppa, “put down your bag and be ready.”

She instantly obeyed. He gave her the gun that he carried slung over his shoulder, which might be in his way. He cocked the one he had in his hand, and walked slowly toward his house, skirting the trees that lined the path, and ready, at the slightest hostile demonstration, to jump behind the largest trunk, where he could fire without exposing himself. His wife followed at his heels, holding his spare gun and his cartridge-box. A good housewife’s work, in case of a fight, is to load her husband’s weapons.

The adjutant, on the other hand, was greatly disturbed to see Mateo advance thus with measured steps, with rifle raised and finger on trigger.

“If by any chance,” he thought, “Mateo proves to be related to Gianetto, or if he is his friend and should take it into his head to defend him, the charges of his two rifles would reach two of us, as sure as a letter reaches its address; and suppose he should draw a bead on me, notwithstanding our relationship!”

In his perplexity he adopted an extremely courageous course--he went forward alone toward Mateo, to tell him what had happened, accosting him as an old acquaintance; but the short distance that separated them seemed to him terribly long.

“Hallo! my old comrade,” he cried; “how goes it, old fellow? It’s me, Gamba, your cousin.”

Mateo, without a word in reply, halted, and as the other spoke he raised the barrel of his gun slowly, so that it was pointed at the sky when the adjutant met him.

“Good-day, brother,” said the adjutant, “it’s a long while since I saw you.”

“Good-day, brother.”

“I looked in to say good-day to you and Cousin Pepa as I passed. We have had a long jaunt to-day; but we ought not to complain of fatigue, as we have made a famous capture. We have caught Gianetto Sanpiero.”

“God be praised!” cried Giuseppa. “He stole a milch goat from us last week.”

Those words made Gamba’s heart glad.

“Poor devil!” said Mateo, “he was hungry.”

“The rascal defended himself like a lion,” continued the adjutant, slightly mortified; “he killed one of my men, and, not content with that, he broke Corporal Chardon’s arm; but there’s no great harm done; he was only a Frenchman. After that, he hid himself so completely that the devil himself couldn’t have found him. If it hadn’t been for my little cousin, Fortunato, I could never have unearthed him.”

“Fortunato!” cried Mateo.

“Fortunato!” echoed Giuseppa.

“Yes, Gianetto was hidden under the haystack yonder; but my little cousin showed me the trick. And I’ll tell his uncle the _caporal_, so that he’ll send him a handsome present for his trouble. And his name and yours will be in the report I shall send the advocate-general.”

“Malediction!” muttered Mateo.

They had joined the squad. Gianetto was already lying on the litter, ready to start. When he saw Mateo with Gamba, he smiled a strange smile; then, turning towards the door of the house, he spat on the threshold, saying:

“House of a traitor!”

Only a man who had made up his mind to die would have dared to utter the word traitor as applying to Falcone. A quick thrust of the stiletto, which would not have needed to be repeated, would have paid for the insult instantly. But Mateo made no other movement than to put his hand to his forehead, like a man utterly crushed.

Fortunato had gone into the house when he saw his father coming. He soon reappeared with a mug of milk, which he handed to Gianetto with downcast eyes.

“Away from me!” shouted the outlaw in a voice of thunder. Then, turning to one of the voltigeurs, “Comrade,” he said, “give me a drink.”

The soldier placed his gourd in his hands, and the outlaw drank the water given him by a man with whom he had recently exchanged rifle shots. Then he asked that his hands might be bound so that they would be folded on his breast, instead of behind his back.